Feb 9, 2023 3 min read

A few days ago, Burgettstown put the finishing touches on its first WPIAL Team Tournament title.

The celebration lasted over the weekend before the Blue Devils started to look ahead to the next hurdle: the PIAA Class 2A Team Tournament in Hershey.

“This is our third trip,” said Burgettstown head coach Joey Vigliotti. “The year we made the WPIAL finals, they only took the champions because of COVID so we didn’t go that year.”

Burgettstown gets underway 2 p.m. today against Honesdale, the District 2 champion.

“It’s the same as the WPIAL finals,” said Vigliotti. “Most of the kids on our team, especially for the upperclassmen, they’ve been in that environment before. They have seen that environment before. They’ve been to Hershey before. So it means a lot.

“I tell the kids there is no stage too big for them. We’ve been there before so it helps to be there before.”

Honesdale brings an 18-4 record into the match. Honesdale took fifth place in the Battle of the Bethlehem Duals and is coming off a six-match winning streak.

“They are all tough teams if they made it to Hershey,” said Vigliotti. “There are no easy matches up there. I’ve looked them up. We’ll scout them well. We started to look at them the same way we did for the WPIAL finals.”

Honesdale’s strength lies in the middle weights with Joey Giannetti (26-9) and Mason Avery (28-9) and Paul Renner (25-9).

Burgettstown brings a 15-0 record in with one of the strongest teams in program history. The District 7 champions are strong up and down the lineup.

“If every kid does their job,” Vigliotti said, “then I think we’ll be OK.”

In other matches, Canon-McMillan got a late start preparing for its first-round opponent: Chambersburg. That’s because Chambersburg wrestled Quakertown in Monday’s preliminary round, which forced Canon-McMillan to wait until Monday evening to see which team would be making the trip to Hershey to wrestle the Big Macs.

Chambersburg won the preliminary-round matchup, 36-31. Chambersburg was the third-place finisher in District 3.

Canon-McMillan, which has steadily been improving this season, won the WPIAL title with a criteria win over Waynesburg.

The Big Macs take a 14-2 record into their match against Chambersburg. The match begins at 8 p.m.

Waynesburg is again dealing with injuries. Joe Simon (127) has a knee injury and is questionable for the Raiders’ first-round match against Shikellamy, the District 4 champion, at 6 p.m. Simon and two-time PIAA champion Mac Church (145) each have missed time because of injuries or illness.

Waynesburg brings a 13-3 record into the match with Shikellamy, which is 18-2.

Bethlehem Catholic and Nazareth, District 11 powers in Class 3A, along with Class 2A’s Faith Christian Academy (District 1) and Notre Dame-Green Pond (District 11) are the favorites for PIAA titles this season.